Ég fór til saumakonu af því að ég vildi stytta faldinn á kjólnum.

Because til takes the genitive case in Icelandic. The noun saumakona changes form after til, so you get saumakonu.

So:

• saumakona = nominative form
• til saumakonu = to a seamstress, with til
  • genitive

This is a very common pattern, so it is worth memorizing that til regularly triggers the genitive.

Icelandic does not have an indefinite article like English a/an.

So a bare noun can often mean:

• saumakona = a seamstress
• kjóll = a dress

If Icelandic wants to make something definite, it usually adds the definite article as a suffix to the noun instead.

Af því að is a very common way to say because.

It introduces a reason:

• Ég fór til saumakonu af því að...
• I went to a seamstress because...

You may also see related forms such as:

• því að
• af því

In everyday language, these can overlap quite a bit, but af því að is a very standard full form for because.

After vilja (to want), Icelandic normally uses a bare infinitive, just like English often does after modal-type verbs.

So:

• ég vil stytta = I want to shorten
• ég vildi stytta = I wanted to shorten

You do not put að before the infinitive after vilja in this kind of sentence.

Faldinn is the definite direct object form here, meaning the hem.

Its form shows two things:

• it is definite: the hem
• it is in the accusative, because it is the object of stytta

So the ending is not random; it reflects both grammar and meaning.

Here Icelandic is using a very natural expression equivalent to the hem on the dress.

A few things are happening:

• á here means on
• there is no movement involved, just location/relationship
• with that kind of meaning, á takes the dative
• kjólnum is the dative singular definite form of kjóll

So á kjólnum literally means on the dress.

Because the speaker is talking about a specific hem and a specific dress.

Icelandic often marks definiteness directly on the noun with a suffix:

• faldinn = the hem
• kjólnum = the dress (in dative form)

This is very similar in meaning to English the hem of the dress, where both nouns are understood as definite.

Grammatically, ég vildi stytta faldinn literally says I wanted to shorten the hem, but in context it does not have to mean the speaker planned to do it personally.

Because the sentence begins with Ég fór til saumakonu, the natural interpretation is that the speaker went to a seamstress to have it shortened.

This is a useful difference from English: Icelandic often uses a simpler verb form where English might prefer something like have the hem shortened.

Fór is the past tense of fara (to go). It is an irregular verb, so the past tense is not formed in a simple predictable way from the infinitive.

Important forms to know are:

• fara = to go
• fer = goes / is going
• fór = went

So Ég fór simply means I went.

This is a subordinate clause introduced by af því að.

The order here is very straightforward:

• ég = subject
• vildi = finite verb
• stytta = infinitive
• faldinn á kjólnum = object phrase

So the structure is basically:

because + subject + wanted + infinitive + object

For a learner, this is a good example of a clear and natural Icelandic subordinate clause.